One Last Time
by DREAMIRIS
Summary: Sherlock and Molly are best friends and have been invited to a party, a unanimous decision by all the girls in their year. Naturally, Sherlock doesn't want to go. The only reason she goes to the party in spite of everything is a blond boy she has had a crush on since middle school. This is Femlock. I repeat, this is Femlock. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**No knowledge of British education system. I did whatever I could from Google.**

**One note of explanation: the italics text means that Sherlock goes into flashback about what happened in the past. Usually when the time isn't mentioned, it means that the flashback continues from where it had ended before.**

**And, somewhere in the middle, Sherlock escapes to her (well, his) Mind Palace, so that is a different read from the present, because I figured that's what Sherlock would do when she (he) found the party tiresome.**

**I always tend to make Sherlock and Molly best friends, I don't know why. Anyway, this is the first time I'm attempting a oneshot and it got pretty long like all of my stories, so... enjoy!**

* * *

Party on Saturday. From half past seven. At Jim's house. That's what the text from Molly read. She knew that Sherlock didn't do parties. And yet, here she was, sending her texts about a party at some boy's house who Sherlock didn't even like. Not that Sherlock had ever been invited to a party. She was the quiet, arrogant science nerd of the class, always buried in her work and her books and her experiments. It was unlikely that she was popular. Well, she was in a way that could be called infamous, of course.

Sherlock didn't like parties. She would have to smile at people she didn't even know or even cared about, and her cheeks hurt from that effort.

She sighed to herself when she realised that John Watson would also be there. It would be the last time that she would get to see him. After that, she would have to move on and go to some university and forget her ridiculous crush on him. Although she doubted if she would ever be able to do that.

She didn't know what exactly her so-called "feelings" for John were anymore. It was a million times intense than a simple crush. Crush was the not-so-succinct description in middle school, one morning when she had woken up and wondered how her "friendly" feelings for John had changed overnight to something more, as if the tooth fairy had come and waved her wand over her and granted her a wish she now hoped should have had never come true.

She decided that she had to go, to say one last goodbye, to see him for one last time. She was surprised that she felt nothing, no sort of poetic expressions of heartache on leaving an important part of her life behind her. But then, she had said her goodbyes a long time ago. It was just that she and John kept running into each other all the time even after graduation day, and Sherlock always had to make up a different rendition of a last goodbye each time, a goodbye John never even heard. He always walked past her and looked away, never even paying any attention to her. Sherlock always imagined John looking back at her over his shoulder as she walked away too, but she knew that that wasn't the case. That could never be the case. Why even would John like her, of all girls?

She didn't even miss him. She knew that she wasn't going to, or at least feel anything different about it. How was she supposed to miss him any differently when she had been doing that for the past four years?

"Party?!" Mummy Holmes almost fainted with joy when she heard that as Sherlock muttered the words meekly at the dinner table, and Daddy Holmes patted Mycroft's back happily as the latter rolled his eyes dramatically, "Well then, Mikey, you'll drop Sherlock, won't you?"

Mycroft looked appalled. If there was anything that Sherlock was getting out of this invitation to a party, it was the nicest glare which Mycroft gave Daddy Holmes.

"Behave, Mike!" Their mother's scandalised voice rang out in the tiny kitchen as Mycroft looked away stubbornly, determinedly avoiding his mother by watching the basket of apples on the kitchen counter, or the laptop which Mummy Holmes had used as a cutting board, "She's your little sister. You should be looking after her more often than going away and playing truant on us with your official nonsense!"

Mycroft simply gave her a look that said _I'll have you deported to Cuba, Mummy! _No one could make out Sherlock's spycam which recorded Mycroft's childishness right under their noses.

* * *

Over the two days, Sherlock prepared herself for everything that life was going to throw in her direction for planning to go to that party. She vowed to herself that she would show John that she could be happy even without him, that she didn't need him to enjoy something in her life, and she was going to enjoy the party a million times more than he would (even though she knew that she would be bored to death). Yes, she was going to hang out with Molly and... Geoff? Maybe Gavin... anyway, the name wasn't important. She prepared herself for the cutting and whip-hard sarcasm that was Mycroft's area of expertise. She prepared herself for the onslaught of banter from Molly. But most importantly, she prepared herself to see John. With the rest of his friends.

When alone, John wasn't a problem. She secretly liked being alone with him. But it was John's friends who didn't like Sherlock a bit, or so she thought. Sherlock always wondered why. She had never given them a reason to hate her (although Molly and Geoff never really agreed about that). They would always regard her with a joke, and they never took Sherlock's words seriously. They'd always tease John with her behind her back, an occurrence she didn't like at all. It had all been John's fault. It had been strictly between them. Why did he have to open his mouth?

Anyway, she prepared herself for everything, like a foot soldier going into battle.

But she didn't prepare herself for going on a six-hour shopping spree with her Mummy (and her Daddy too). Sherlock groaned to herself. And suddenly she didn't want to go anymore. They went on about the party where they had met each other for the first time, with Daddy as always completing Mummy's sentences, and Mummy looking annoyed but secretly pleased. Sherlock chuckled bitterly to herself at how different this party was for her. This was the last time she was going to see John, as opposed to Mummy and Daddy's story.

Sherlock knew that she wasn't going to look good, not with all those gorgeous silk dresses that Mummy pulled out for her, completely frantic with excitement that Sherlock had been invited to her first party. They just weren't her type. She was always comfortable in a shirt and a cardigan over it and a skirt. All other girls were going to look absolutely gorgeous, she cowered at the supposed fact that John was going to go after them. Mummy picked loads of dresses for her, and she went into the changing rooms, tried each and every one, not because she had nothing to do, but because she actually wanted to look good in front of John, to have those eyes light up in appreciation and wonder like they once used to. But every time, she found some or other defect in the dress and she rejected it at once. Sometimes, they just seemed to hang lifelessly from her form. Sometimes they looked like an oversized poncho. Either way, Mummy got so angry and frustrated with her at the end that she decided to buy two dresses that caught her eye, and demanded that she wear them, whether she liked them or not. Sherlock looked sadly at them. They wouldn't look bad, but at any rate, they wouldn't look good.

And when they reached home, Mycroft cast a weather eye upon them, and smirked at his mother, "Rather too fancy for Sherlock, don't you think? I'll gift one of these to Andrea if Sherlock doesn't look good in them-"

"Mycroft Holmes!" their mother's voice boomed in the house, just a little short of the resonant frequency of the glass panes, "You concentrate on your diet, young man!"

* * *

Once alone in her room with those dresses, Sherlock tried them on again, in the privacy of the four walls of her room. She imagined wearing the pretty purple velvet one to the party, and at once, the mocking voices of John's friends flooded her mind, commenting on her dress and how inappropriate it looked on a science nerd. She didn't give a rat's ass about what they thought, but although she didn't like the fact, she did care about John's opinion. She imagined John agreeing with them, although not outwardly because he was just too good and too polite to do so, but he surely would think on similar lines. But, at any rate, John never made fun of her, at the least not to her face. As in, he used to make fun of her, but not in a bad way, in a friendly way, long back when they used to talk with each other instead of what they were now. She liked to believe that John was different from his friends, that he wasn't as narrow-minded as they were.

But then John was very polite with girls about such things. He never made fun of any girl. That didn't mean that he couldn't go behind her back and... do those things with the guys where they rate girls based on their preferences, and where each of their rankings understandably coincided, although she had never really seen John participating in such polls, but of course, it was human tendency to think about the subject matter that your friends talk about. She had seen him agree with them on numerous occasions on things that she never could believe that he could've agreed on. Maybe, he was just going along with them, even if he really didn't agree...

No. That was simply impossible. She had never seen the strength of character that John possessed in any other person, not even Mycroft. John was very strong, mentally and emotionally, and he would never agree about something that he didn't believe in. It was one of the reasons why Sherlock had always loved him so much. She had never seen anyone with so strong, even as a child, and with so much force of character, so much that every single boy respected John and his privacy.

Thinking about the possible jeers that his friends would throw towards her, she quickly abandoned the dress and picked up the other one: a black chiffon one. It was expensive, and tasteful, too tasteful for her. She would definitely look out of character in it. And she would definitely stand out in it. She didn't want that. She wanted to blend in, while hoping that John would eventually fall in love with her at first sight, even though she had declared it an impossibility years ago.

A snide voice came from outside, "Trying on those dresses again, Sherlock? Finally taken... _fancy_ to someone?"

"Go away!" she snarled at the door, waiting for the heavy footsteps to recede. She sighed as she looked at her reflection in the knee length mirror. John would surely think that she had worn that dress to impress him, and she definitely didn't want to come across as desperate. She wanted to give him the impression that she had moved on from her crush on him, from that incident three years ago, because she really had. He didn't give her those 'butterfly feelings in the stomach', as Molly very immaturely worded them, anymore.

* * *

_Three years ago..._

_She worked her courage up finally. She had been working on it for the past week. She was freaking out that John was going to lose his interest in her, that John would go and get himself a girlfriend, the one possibility that hadn't occurred to her before. And when she saw Sarah Sawyer flirting with him, and when she thought that John was flirting back, Sherlock couldn't take it anymore. And when she heard of the rumours about John going out with Sarah, Sherlock began to grow not only jealous, but frantic. She couldn't bear to see John with any girl other than her._

_Moreover, she and John were continuously growing apart. John had become so much different from the boy she had fallen in love with. But she still loved him, nonetheless, because whenever he would be alone with her, he would still be that boy who tried to stifle his tears when some other boy knocked over his favourite lunch. He would still be the boy whose eyes would glint endearingly at the promise of mischief, the boy whose smile would make her feel strangely warm inside. He would still be that middle school John Watson who used to tell her everything about himself and his life and his family and all the funny movies that he watched and all the new things that he read about in books._

_So, she worked up her nerve. It was a Saturday, and John, being the captain of the soccer team, had his afterschool practice. Sherlock walked up to him just before it, just before all the others had arrived, still wondering whether what she was doing was right or not. He looked at her curiously as she approached him and waited patiently for her to start. They hadn't talked in weeks._

_"Erm, John..." Sherlock started, looking down at her converse shoes, and then she looked into his eyes, sudden decision written in hers, "Just give me five minutes to explain this..."_

_In her mind, she could already see Mycroft looking down at her, grave and worried, asking her to stop then and there, pleading with her to change the topic to something else, but she simply swallowed, thinking of how she won't be able to take back what she said._

_"...I love you..."_

_She didn't even pause to see John's reaction. Her mind screamed to her, the wailing deafening her like the sirens of a thousand police cars, like a megahorn shouting that she had finally screwed it up. John wasn't interested in her, he would never be. Why did she ever think that John would be interested in her? Sarah was much more prettier and cheerful. He just considered Sherlock a friend, and that too was her designation in middle school. Now, he probably only pitied her._

_So she did the only thing she could have done. She ran away, too scared to even see John's face, too scared to see the rejection etched upon it. She didn't understand what there was to be scared of. It was only the truth that she had uttered. And yet, she was frightened of that unnamed something that would happen to her if he rejected her. Her logical mind told her that there was nothing to be scared of. That John would tell her that he didn't feel similarly, and then awkwardly pat her shoulder and tell her that he had his soccer practice and that he needed to go. He'd tell her that he was sorry, although there wasn't any reason to be, and go away. Her logical brain wasn't able to predict or explain the heartbreak that she knew that she would feel, although she wasn't sure herself that she would. She was never sure when it came to John. She always thought that he liked her back also, those fleeting glances made her think so... but her rational mind always overrode her, reminding her that there were prettier girls in the class, like Sarah Sawyer or Mary Morstan._

_Her mind told her that if she had dared to stay there, maybe John also would've... however improbable it was. But she hadn't. She had run away. And she still didn't know whether he..._

_"...Bye."_

_She ran and ran till there was no more school to run from, till she reached the farthest end of the building. She cursed herself for her stupidity, and only tried to tell herself that this had lifted a large weight from her chest, whereas in reality it had served the exactly opposite purpose._

_She had asked for five minutes. Five minutes that would never be over._

_It was only after she had stopped that she noticed her heart raging against her ribcage in the wake of her brain yelling 'stupid, stupid, stupid' over and over again._

_It was only after she had stopped that she realised that there were tears in her eye, threatening to overflow, blurring her vision. She blinked them away proudly, while checking around to see whether anyone had seen her. She heaved a sigh of relief. No one._

_John would say something in return, won't he? Social protocols dictated that he had to._

* * *

On the day of the party, Sherlock thought that she should reach the party late. That's what people did, she read online and as Mummy told her. You never reach a party early. As the last moment arrived when she had to choose one of the dresses, she was in a fix. She really didn't want to wear them. She would look grossly out of herself wearing those.

So when Mummy and Daddy waited eagerly for her to come out of her room, ready to see her in her new dress, they were disappointed to see Sherlock in a simple blue top and skinny jeans. Mycroft, for the first time, smiled at her, not out of malice but approvingly, and Sherlock tried to throw a scowl in his direction. This was the last time that John was going to see her and he wasn't going to see a different person. He was going to see her for what she really was, how he always saw her. If she wanted him to remember her forever, she would go in this, not those dresses that just weren't her, not in the least.

"Sherlock," her mother exclaimed sadly, "What happened to the new dresses I bought you?"

"Got bored," was all her mother needed to roll her eyes and to go into her room. Sherlock took this opportunity to walk out of the house, "I don't need an escort Mycroft," said she, putting on her jacket, "I know the route."

She thought she was going to be nervous, and was pleased to find out that she wasn't, and that her emotions were in check by her brain. This was ridiculous, she thought as she sat back in the cab, watching the rest of the London pass by. She found her fingers dying to wrap around a cigarette and she resisted the urge. She wasn't going to smoke that night, she decided.

She wondered why she felt the strange nothingness. She always did, but this time it was different. She had thought that because this was going to be the last time that she was going to see John, she should've been feeling a very tell-tale ache in her chest. Her brain allowed for that amount of sentiment, and she was quite puzzled when that didn't happen. She often found herself doubting her own feelings for John. Did she even like him, or was he just a distraction?

Her memories begged to differ.

* * *

And when she reached the address, she realised that she was very late. She was actually the last one to have arrived. Molly spotted her and threw her arms around her, pulling her into a crushing hug, "Finally! Thought you were gonna be a no-show."

Sherlock tried to throw her a weak smile. Her cheeks had already begun to hurt. Beyond her shoulder, she spotted a blond head, no spikes, no hair gel, just normal, dry, ash blond hair on a head subconsciously turned in her direction.

John,

She expected her heart to pound furiously when she saw him, and even when their eyes met briefly, but she found that she still felt that same nothingness. The nothingness tinged only by an immense desire to look away.

* * *

_Sherlock couldn't sleep that night. Not that she usually did, but that night she genuinely tried, but sleep wouldn't come to her. She kept tossing and turning in her bed, stood up to close the curtains because moonlight was flooding into the room, and she needed complete darkness to sleep. But even though, her eyes kept staring into the blackness, wondering what John would say to her on Monday, when they saw each other in the school._

_The classroom looked like it had just been back from hell. There was chaos everywhere, and John, ever the sincere prefect, was trying to control them in the absence of the teacher. Sherlock was sitting on the desk, reading her book because her chair had disappeared somewhere, her back to the chalkboard, when she heard a familiar tenor voice behind her, very close to her, "Ms. Bevan is looking for you."_

_She turned around suddenly, and found herself facing John, and found her cheeks going redder and her heart hammering in her chest. John didn't look like he was going to say anything. He simply pointed outside, where their chemistry teacher was standing. Sherlock had thought that John had just made up an excuse to talk to her, even though John never did that. She looked at him for one second, expectantly, waiting for his reaction from that day. None came. John didn't even look like he was going to acknowledge what Sherlock had told him that day._

_She closed her book and nodded, her face perfectly normal, not allowing John to see her features wanting to fall and crumble into dust._

* * *

And now, after three years, she looked away just as her eyes met his, and she surprisingly hugged Molly back. She didn't want John to see her as a loner. She wanted him to see her as a person who had a healthy social life, just like he did, even if that was far from truth, even if that wasn't how John knew her.

* * *

_Six years ago..._

_"Why do you always sit alone?" one of John's friends asked her. Sherlock frowned at him, and then noticed that out of the corner of her eye, John was waiting for an answer. He also wondered the same thing too, probably. It was still one of those months where she and John were just friends, they were just getting to know each other, and she didn't have a crush on him yet._

_"Why not?"_

_John's friends were nicer to her when they were smaller, when they were in middle school. One of them even had a crush on her, and many of his friends teased him about it._

_Sherlock was the only girl John talked to. He had no idea how special that made her feel. He made fun of her, and then started saying sorry, not wanting to upset her although she never really was upset, while he cheerfully accepted her compliments of "You're an idiot, John!" Sherlock didn't get upset easily. She made fun of John too, for reading only Dan Brown and Percy Jackson novels, and of his short height. John always smiled good-naturedly and told her that when he would be fourteen, he would surely grow taller than her. He would have a growth spurt. Sherlock knew that but she still liked annoying him._

_John was her first real friend, someone she trusted more than herself, a person she actually cared about. Molly came later, during lower sixth form._

_"I could sit with you," John offered, "but then you'll have to bring your textbooks every alternate days, okay?"_

_"It's alright," she shook her head, not wanting to part with her privacy, "You don't have to do that."_

_John simply shrugged his shoulders and she turned towards the chalkboard. She raised her hand to ask a doubt about the pulmonary system of the humans._

_A month later, she wished she had accepted his offer._

* * *

The music was loud, and not at all to Sherlock's liking. She wasn't a fan of the new hip-hop culture at all. She looked around, her eyes settling on John when she ascertained herself that John wasn't looking in her direction. John was the only one without hair gel, the only one in a proper shirt. Sherlock smiled to herself. His fashion sense was horrible.

She recalled the date. One month and it would be three years since she had confessed to John. Three years since John had pretended that nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed. Sherlock knew that John found these things difficult, talking about feelings and stuff, but that wasn't an excuse good enough to leave her hanging on to the futile hope, to the series of maybe he did, or maybe he didn't.

Molly handed her a glass of punch, which she refused at once, "Here you go, bestie, and come here. I want to introduce you to someone."

She dragged her over to a senior called Victor, tall, dashing, tanned, handsome and the new captain of the football team, "Victor, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is Victor. Bye-bye."

Sherlock looked at Molly helplessly as Geoff... no, he was Greg, now she remembered his name... dragged her away. She found herself looking around for John, and she found him chatting away with his friends. She looked away and focussed her attention on her new acquaintance. He seemed interesting, he had come by a bus, and had been lost initially. He had a dog, now dead, no, sister had a dog, yes, sister not brother. He didn't have any brothers. Victor smiled kindly at her, and Sherlock kept looking past his shoulder at John. She found herself wondering why John had never had a girlfriend. Maybe he was gay... no, John couldn't be gay. Otherwise she would've noticed, she would've known. Maybe he did have a girlfriend, and maybe he was just clever enough to hide it from her and the rest of the world. That could be because she and John now had the most minimal of contact. Even if that were possible, she would have known... no, she knew for sure that John had never had a girlfriend. And she found herself wondering why.

"Can I get you a drink?" Victor asked her.

"Yeah, okay."

As Victor smiled at her and walked away, she took this opportunity to look around herself. Every single girl looked better than she did, she thought. She watched Sarah Sawyer approach John, looking fabulous in the same black chiffon dress that her Mummy had bought her, and touch his shoulder to draw his attention to her. She watched all the boys cheering him and Sarah blushing as she led John away, pulling him down to whisper something in his ear, practically falling on him. John nodded, his eyes travelling upwards, and then to his right. So, John was trying to imagine whatever she was telling him, Sherlock concluded. He answered her, smiling politely and then turned away back to his friends. For one fleeting moment, Sherlock imagined that John's eyes had met hers again.

"Here you go," Victor came back and handed her a glass of punch. This time, she really couldn't refuse it, because she had asked for it in the first place. She drank only a little amount, knowing that she wouldn't be able to make her way back home if she had too much of it.

"Molly tells me you're into chemistry," said he, trying to sound conversational, "So, we're alike there."

Sherlock tried her best not to roll her eyes, "You know, you should never use that as a pickup line for girls."

"Oh really?" Victor smiled in a way that suggested that he found Sherlock cute, "Why, what's wrong?"

Interesting or not, Victor was dumb, she decided, "Because a girl will always start asking you questions on it just to see if you're fibbing or not."

"Ask me anything. PV versus nRT, molecular orbital theory," he shrugged his shoulders, "I'll answer it all. I love chemistry too."

Just then, Victor's phone buzzed in his pocket, and Sherlock replied, "You might want to check the service message, Victor. I think it has cost you a fair amount of the browser charges and your phone balance."

He started laughing, looking over her with an appreciative grin, "Okay, busted. You really are clever. How did you know that?"

"Oh please," now she really couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes, "Molly offered me punch in front of you. You saw that I refused, and yet you still asked me if I would like something to drink. Why would you do that? You went away, got a glass for me, and checked on the internet whatever you could, given the fact that Molly was trying to hook you up with me, she told you that about chemistry and stuff... By the way, if you're looking for just a hook up, the girl over there is your best bet," Sherlock pointed at a lovely looking brunette, "Just got over her breakup, wants to make her ex jealous."

Victor frowned in confusion, "How do you know that?"

"Look at her clothes: very revealing. She's otherwise a very self-conscious girl, would never wear such a dress to any party. Look at the way she's got her arms crossed over her chest, unconscious attempt to conceal her cleavage of course."

"She... just could've been wanting to take a night off or something?" Victor suggested.

"Of course not. She's faking her interest in that boy, because the majority of her attention is still fixed on that one over there," Sherlock pointed to a greaser flirting with another girl, "Crush or ex-boyfriend. Latter is more likely. No sane person would pine over her crush at this age," she added, trying not to think about herself.

Victor looked at her longingly, "Are you sure-?"

"Yes," she attempted a criminally fake smile, before dropping her face altogether, seeing as her cheeks began hurting again. She'd have to do something about that. She watched Victor walk away and engage in an interesting conversation with that girl, and then she looked around herself. She was the only one who was alone. Everyone else had someone to talk and laugh with.

So, unlike what she had planned, she settled down in a corner, and revelled in the simple relief that came from watching John. She didn't even know why she was doing that. She felt nothing at all. She wondered why she couldn't feel jealousy or sadness anymore, like she had become numb because of the un-worded rejection that had been thrown in her direction. John threw her two or three glances, but as always, they avoided each other's eyes. She always wondered why John had to avoid her eyes when it didn't matter to him at all. It was understandable for her, but John had nothing romantic for her.

Sherlock watched him only when she was sure that he wasn't looking. She missed the way John made her feel. She missed the way John made her heart beat faster and slower at the same time. She always thought that John was special, that he could always reach out to her icy heart and make it melt under his warmth. But now, it seemed as if that was changing as well.

They could've been friends at least, she thought. Anything better than not talking or not acknowledging each other's presence at all.

She stole another glance at him. He was clicking photographs of everyone, capturing every face of the rest of his year in his phone. She looked away. She never took him to be that sort of fellow who was sentimental enough to click away photos of everyone.

Sometimes she wondered whether she knew John Watson at all.

She stood up. She wasn't going to languish after him. She had come to this awful, dreadful, stupid, boring party to have what the rest of the world called fun. She wasn't going to appear as a loner in his photographs, if he even bothered to take one of hers. Sherlock wondered why she always felt like a loner only when John was around. Most of the time she just alienated herself because she found her thoughts and browsing on the internet for various Olympiad level questions and exciting crimes sufficiently entertaining, but she never felt like doing that in front of him. She didn't understand why. Maybe because she just happened to have an inferiority complex which rose to the situation magnificently only when John was around... Probably.

"John!"

Sherlock thought she flinched at the shrill voice of Mary Morstan calling out for John lazily. She didn't.

"John, do you have a hanky that I could use?"

He smiled politely and handed her his spotless handkerchief from his pocket, taking care that their fingers didn't touch as he passed it to her. Sherlock noticed it, and thought she was going to feel those warm feelings in her chest rise again.

She didn't. Of course, she wasn't going to. She had already accepted that John was never going to be with her. Sherlock watched as Mary wrote down her number on it. Sherlock frowned at that. John _didn't_ have Mary's number? She couldn't help but glance at the 'call me' gesticulation she gave him as she handed it back to him, and their fingers didn't brush, not even accidently, not even when Mary tried her best. John watched the number curiously and put it back in his pocket, shrugging nonchalantly to himself, and continued with his photographing.

* * *

_Five years ago..._

_"Put that right there, yeah."_

_Sherlock propped her head against her fingers, an exasperated sigh leaving her lips. Christmas was supposed to be one of those seasons of the year that she liked, and she didn't know why, perhaps because Mycroft hated it. That was the best explanation. She marvelled at the stupidity of the people she was working with. They did not have even basic interior decoration sense._

_And now, she was really beginning to hate Christmas._

_"Not like this!" she hissed angrily, ordering everyone around, "We're decorating for Christmas, not for International Day for Idiocy!"_

_Mummy had insisted that Sherlock helped with decorating the Nativity setting outside the church during the Christmas. Sherlock had sulked for an entire day, which only made Mummy get Sherlock's father explain to her about the spirit of Christmas. At the end, just to escape Daddy's lecture, Sherlock agreed grudgingly._

_"Hey, do you guys need any help?"_

_She turned around at that voice, the familiar, kind and friendly voice of John who was smiling at them. She shook her head, trying to ignore the elation. John was also there. He was also going to be there. In the church. Decorating too._

_"No thank you. I'm trying my best to instruct these idiots here, but they just don't understand."_

_"They would if you stopped calling them idiots."_

_She stepped up on the stool, as she saw John just extend his hand out of the corner of her eye, as if to help her up. She rolled her eyes, "Please! I can get up all by myself. You don't have to "help" me."_

_John's eyes narrowed, "I know. I was just passing you this cherub."_

_Sherlock looked down at his hand. He had not outstretched them to help her up, he was merely passing her the cherub that she needed to hang there. She tried not to flush at her own stupidity, and when she was finished with it, she contemplated what to do with the cherub._

_"Put that down for a moment," she ordered, studying the decorations for a second, as if they were an important experiment, "Get that stool and that box of decorations, and help me up here."_

_He nodded and soon, they were putting up various Christmas toys, not talking. His presence beside her was enough for her. At last, the cherub remained and John passed it to her. She tiptoed up and tried to hang it on the small nail, but her fingers were just out of her reach._

_Suddenly, she felt a brush of foreign skin against her fingers, followed by John's voice, "Let me help." Sherlock froze then and there as John took the cherub from her and hung it in the desired place. She didn't know what had happened, her brain had short-circuited, and she couldn't even process how his skin felt against hers, except for a general description of good. She immediately withdrew her fingers away and got down the stool, waiting for him, looking down at the ground, desperately trying to get her brain to start booting again by not looking at John. She didn't see his face as she muttered incoherently, "I'll erm... I need to go check... erm, help the others."_

_And before she could even comprehend what she was doing, she had already left John alone and had succumbed to her former irritating and bossy self, ordering others around. It took her a few moments to calm down, bring the colour down from her cheeks, to regulate her heart rate and her uneven breathing, whilst wondering what that was. While wondering how she hadn't managed to fall from there._

* * *

She stood there, listlessly as her brain immediately recalled that memory connected with that particular tactile association. The magical feeling of John's fingers against hers, the moment had made her realise that she was madly in love with him, and that she could never feel similarly for someone else. Such a love was said to come only once. She had tested that theory a million times to try and disprove it. She always got a satisfaction out of disproving theories. She even tried to fall for others, just as an experiment, but it would never work. Like she was too busy being his to fall for anyone else. There _was_ no one else. Just John. Just John, his smiles and his memories and all the hurt...

She didn't know if she wanted to leave the party. And even if she did, she never acted upon the impulse. Emotion had always been beyond her, even as a kid. Of course, John had changed that, made her doubt her own entire personality, made her believe that she was perhaps good and humane, and that she was capable of love. He was painfully ordinary, she had to confess. But there was something, something she had never been able to put her finger on. Going back to her memories of him, she found nothing consequential to point towards it. Perhaps it needed a little more constructive environment; the hip hop wasn't exactly working wonders for her little brainstorming session-

"Sherlock!" Molly crashed into her all of a sudden, almost knocking her off her feet while Greg tried to balance her, "Come on, dance!"

And before Sherlock could protest, she was being dragged to the other side of the room. Sherlock ducked away from several kissing couples before she felt another grip on her wrist. Janine was practically screaming into her ears, "No SCIENCE today, Sherl! You've got to dance!"

Sherlock wanted to remind her that she was fond of dancing but not to silly and pathetic music (if it could even be called that) like the one that was playing. She didn't understand why her friends always assumed that she thought nothing other than books. Her eyes instinctively looked around for John, as if they wanted to have as much of him as they could. It was the last time she would be seeing him, or his smile, or his lips which he kept licking over and over again. She looked around herself and stopped whatever little dancing she was doing. She was alone again: Molly was with Greg, Janine was with a new comics and sci-fi geek who had offered to dance with her. Suddenly she saw John coming in her direction. One side of her mind yelled to her to run from there, but she couldn't, or rather she didn't. Why should she run? She saw no logic in that. That's what her brain always did in front of John.

So, she went and collapsed on a beanbag in a corner, doing what she always did: contemplate and mull over things, her resolution to enjoy completely forgotten. She watched John smiling, laughing away without her. She missed laughing along with him. She wondered if he missed her too. She wondered if he missed playing pranks with her on others, or mess chemicals up in the chemistry lab. She wondered if she ever made him feel the way he made her feel. She wonders if his heart also spent more time in his mouth than his chest... no, she didn't dare to think that he could have any other sort of sentiment for her than friendship. Maybe John just wasn't into romantic relationships. Otherwise, a boy like him was sure to have girlfriends.

_...Afghanistan or Iraq?_ she had whispered as John settled in the bench in front of her. He turned around in surprise, looked at Mike and then back at her.

_Do you know me?_ He had asked.

_I wish I always did_, said she to herself in present day, still watching him, still sitting on the beanbag as John's eyes locked onto hers while he excused himself away from Sarah Sawyer, and then cast an eye over Sherlock's graceful figure, his eyes betraying no emotion whatsoever. That was okay, Sherlock never herself liked the way she looked. When she was a kid, she was fond of how her figure wasn't strictly feminine, that she didn't have much curves in her body. John came in, and by the end of secondary school, that thought had changed, insecurities had swept in. If only John said something... he was always such a mystery character. She could read his whole life, but she could never read his mind, or what he liked, other than secretly causing mischief.

Janine turned her attention back to her, "Sherl! Come ON!" And suddenly she was led into a wild fast waltz, if it could be even called waltz she didn't know. This was some contemporary and decidedly stupid sort of dance form, something that people did with minimum amount of legwork, with only jumping like rabbits and waving your arms around. Sherlock found her thoughts thankfully swept away from John as she found herself being led away from him. She managed to shake off some of the resistance that she had been feeling earlier, and started smiling more often too, peppering them with false laughs, just to test the theory which proposed that you can actually feel happy by laughing all around. Theory disproved successfully, she actually felt better than she had half-an-hour ago.

She glanced at her watch. It had already been one and a half hours, and she had just begun to loosen up. And now, she didn't even feel like that. She retreated to a quiet corner, and dialled a number.

"Yes... what, Sherlock?"

She frowned at the presence of background noise, which was practically non-existent whenever she called Mycroft, "What's that in the background?"

A beat, and then, "Nothing. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be at the-?"

"So this is why you didn't offer any resistance when I mentioned the party, didn't you?!" Sherlock hated him, she truly hated him, "You wanted me out of the house? Who is it you have in there now... it can't be a woman, since you're clearly...?"

"So pleasant to hear from you too, Sherlock... I take it that _mingling_ isn't agreeing with you?"

"Mycroft!"

"I always told you, Sherlock. You'll need your social skills. Anyway, why exactly have you called me?"

Sherlock looked at the joyful teens around her, and the particularly happy blond boy in a stupid shirt, a something which she strangely liked as well, "Do I need an excuse to talk to my brother? Not to mention overweight."

Mycroft gave a short laugh at that, "I'll let you get back to it, sister dear. You were talking about having _fun_, weren't you? I'd love to spoil it, but... anyway, do give your friends my love, particularly Mr. Watson."

Sherlock gritted her teeth, "I will." And she cut the phone.

She had never told anyone about this absurd crush on John. Not even Molly, not even Janine. Not even her parents, and not even Mycroft. Her parents knew the Watson family well enough, of course, because Sherlock and John used to be the best of friends in middle school, but they couldn't see Sherlock's feelings for him. She couldn't find it in herself to confide in anyone, and she had always been a master at hiding things from others, from everyone. She noticed Molly and Greg moving towards her out of the corner of her eye, and she put on a nice smile to convince them that she was happy enough for them to leave her alone. But no, they caught her hand and dragged her over to the other side of the room.

"Party games!" one of them shouted in her ear. Sherlock wasn't sure who.

She decided that she didn't like it, the concept of having a celebration for the most insignificant things like Graduation. The whole room seemed to slow down and come to a stop, the smiles frozen in their faces, and now Sherlock could make out exactly which ones were genuine, and which were fake. Escaping into the Palace was a terrible temptation now, and so she did, slipping past her consciousness, trusting her body to autopilot as she slipped past the various barriers that protected her mind, and then finally her heart.

She was standing outside it now, the gaunt iron gates that sealed off all access to the mental residence. Her fingers reached out, and they melted away, as if instantly recognising the touch. Each time, it was different. Sometimes it was a trapdoor in her own room, sometimes it was the wicket gate of their garden, but most of the time, it was the cupboard in the classroom, where she had met John for the first time. But whatever the entrance, the insides remained the same, a warped creation of her mind.

She closed her eyes, and her counterpart standing in front of the palace closed hers, extending her fingers, towards the first room. This was unknown, she had never seen it before. With a sharp tug, she pulled it open, only to find herself back staring into Molly's face, laughing out loud, on the verge of being smashed. She thought that somehow her companions had managed to pull her out of there, but then she realised that it was the Party, and she was very surprised to find that it had acquired a room already. Of course, it had to. Here would be the place she would see John for the last time. No matter how many times she said that to herself, the effect remained the same: nothingness. Muted tunes fell upon her ear, and in the farthest corner of her eye, she could feel a gaze penetrating into her skin, seeing through her.

John.

She turned around, to see him miles, miles away in that small room with the dimensions of 8x6x3. There was a secret compartment somewhere, she inferred.

But he wasn't the John in that stupid shirt. He was the John in Year 8, twelve years old. She still remembered him as the boy who had taught her how to make paper boats in the rain, and she had listened, even when she knew it...

John crossed the miles in one second. She wished he always could do that in the real life.

_Give me your hand_, he whispered, his voice not yet cracked, no Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. She knew this memory, so she did not seem as startled as she had seemed the first time when John had asked her that. She simply extended hers, palm towards him, a gesture of surrender, a gesture acknowledging John as superior. He extended his, his palm faced towards hers, acknowledging her as his equal.

_You're a girl_, he exclaimed.

In the original memory, she had scoffed at that, asking him to teach her how to make such subtle observations. He had narrowed his eyes and protested, saying that she never let him complete what he wanted to say, that she never let him say what he wanted to say to her.

Sherlock wondered. If she had stayed that day, would John have told her that too? Being in her Palace, the influence of her left brain was far stronger.

If he had to say something, he would have. He wouldn't have kept it to himself for three years.

But here, in her Palace, she just let him compare their palm sizes, just let him say what he wanted to say, even though she knew what he was going to say.

_You are a girl, and you still have bigger palms than I do._

A moment later she saw rain around her, although she wasn't getting drenched, even though she hadn't covered herself up in raincoat like John had. He kneeled down, dirty with the mud in his trousers, still twelve year old, smiling heavenly up at her, and pulling at her arm.

_Try one._

Her attention was turned to the little paper boats, and the little stream which had formed in front of her, in the torrents of rain. She noticed John's mother coming for them, and she made her slow down, and finally, stop. In her Palace, she could do everything. She was the queen here, even though it was just plain fantasy clashing with the facts stored in her mind.

John laughed happily at the sight of his boats going down the stream. But the secondary school John was a serious man, focused, career-oriented, and friendly and social. No longer the bubbly, energetic creature.

_Energetic, adjective for energy. Generation. Power plants. Plants. Plantae. Animalia. Chordata. Mammalia. Homo Sapien. Human body. Energy. Oxygen. Cell. Mitochondria. ATP. Adenosine Triphosphate._

_I'm in love with you_, she whispered, taking little John's hands, and finding herself as the twelve year old girl, the annoying tomboy, the brain, as she took John's fingers and pressed them against her chest, right where her heart was, as if wanting him to steal it out of her, wanting to tear it out of her.

_Still? _The John that was a part of her asked her. She couldn't believe how his voice could be so incredulous, when it was the absolute truth. This was the John who answered, who replied back, and yet managed to keep her hanging on to a thread.

The rain turned into a hurricane, with John at the eye of it, peaceful, calm, high pressure region.

The storm moved, and she found herself being consumed by it. Sucked into it, and out of her Palace back to reality.

_Still_, she confirmed. _Always._

And back where John was with his friends, checking on his phone the latest score of some soccer match they were missing. Back where Molly, Greg, Mike and Janine were playing Dumb Charades, and looking like they were having a lot of fun by guessing the names of the movies. Sherlock clashed with the real world, and instantly rolled her eyes. The game was stupid. She could easily make out the name of the movie that Mary was whispering into Janine's ears. Her heart gave an odd flutter when she saw John sitting beside Mary. She could swear that John had been watching her till she looked in his direction.

Beside her, Molly tried her best to guess the name of the movie that Janine was trying to act out. Sherlock leaned in her direction, "It's easy, I can lip-read her-"

But Molly simply shook her head, "Sherlock, we all can lip-read her. But if we already know, what's the fun in guessing?"

Sherlock tried to follow her reasoning and she found that she couldn't. The end result was going to be the same, so why were they bothering to go by the long route when there was a shortcut available?

She risked a glance at John, flanked by Mary and Sarah and smiled in self-pity. She didn't stand a chance against them. She had tried her best. She had tried to comply with whatever she thought John might like in his girlfriend: tried to be a little feminine, tried to empathise with others, tried to be what people called 'cool', tried not to bore John with her talks about experiments, or mystery crimes and cases that NSY couldn't solve, or in short, tried everything just to be not herself. But in spite of everything, she found herself drifting away from him. She was ready to part with herself to be with John, anything to be with him, but it didn't work. She was still A Bit Not Good.

She wished she knew what to do. And she virtually had no idea what she had done wrong.

"Yeah, yeah..." she heard Molly squeal with excitement, "jealous? Envy? Resentment? Spite... colour... Green, green! Okay, what's that? Hold... bear...?"

"Lantern!" John shouted out excitedly, "The green lantern!"

There was a round of applause, and Mary leaned down to throw her arms around John's neck. Sherlock watched, from the other end of the circle in which they were sitting, devoid of emotion, in fact enjoying the murderous look on Sarah Sawyer's face. Sherlock laughed inwardly. They seriously looked like they could tear each other down. John returned it, and they both settled down.

"You heard me, didn't you?" she began flirtatiously.

John simply rolled his eyes, "Yeah right. I didn't see you protesting before you hugged me in congratulations."

Sherlock tried not to smile. John always gave perfect replies to everything. Everything except that one question. Well, she hadn't worded it as a question, but it was implied.

John had changed. He used to be a lively teen once upon a time, he never bothered to control and think through his responses.

_You look like a mad scientist_, he had said once, when she had gotten her hair cut off, when she had chicken pox once and she had to get her hair cut off because she couldn't bear it. He had been so surprised to see her in short hair for the first time.

After three years, Sherlock would have no idea she would miss the surprised look on John's face so much. No matter what she did, whatever stunt she pulled, she could never get John to gasp in astonishment. Like he had become numb too.

She returned to the game as she pondered over Molly's words. The objective of the game was to guess. That is why they did not go for lip-reading. The objective of the game was the journey, not the destination. She wondered if that was also her case. John's case. Should she have told him that she loved him that day, she didn't know.

Sherlock slowly discovered that she was rather good at Dumb Charades. And that the game wasn't as stupid as she had deemed it to be. It was fairly interesting, especially the movies which had more than six words in its name. Fortunately, the game did not lose its fun for her because she didn't know the names of most of them. Finally, her turn came. She had to act. She tried to back out, but her companions forced her to stand up in the middle of the group, where she felt terribly self-conscious. She could feel the mocking glares of John's friends around her.

"No, not Sherlock," one of them, called Sebastian Moran whined, "She always depresses the spirit of the game."

She saw Sarah Sawyer, David and Jim agree with him. She saw Molly's and Greg's angry face. She saw disapproving look on Janine's face, ready to throw a retort in Sebastian's direction.

"For God's sake guys!" She heard John's voice somewhere behind her, "Let her act!"

She couldn't believe her ears. John was standing up for her, against his friends, something she had never seen him do before, not for any girl at least. She wanted to feel good about it, she wanted to flash a grateful smile in his direction, she wanted to look into his eyes, she wanted to believe that he did this because he had a secret something for her. But in the end, it only ended up making her feel more hollow. It was probably the pity talking, pity that no one liked her, "Give me the name, Molly."

She did not look into John's eyes as she turned around to peek into Molly's cell, and smiled at the weird name.

_Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb_

Comedy/War. What sort of a movie was that? And it actually had 8.5 rating on IMDb!

Molly giggled at Sherlock, knowing that she was watching the name with incredulity even when there was no sign of such sentiment on her face, "Good luck! Fifteen minutes to get this right," she whispered.

Anyway, she was up for a good challenge. She turned to her ex-classmates, resolutely avoiding John's eyes, as she put up her ten fingers on display, and then made a plus sign and then three fingers.

_You are a girl, and you still have bigger palms than I do._

It was still true.

"Thirteen words?" Everybody's eyes narrowed, as if Sherlock was just kidding. But she only nodded her head in acquiescence, to confirm whatever they said. Everyone threw accusatory looks at Molly, wondering what movie she had fished out.

"Molly, you evil soul!" Janine giggled excitedly, "Okay Sherl, the next clue!"

"Wait!" David exclaimed, "get a piece of paper, we'll need to write it down if it's so long."

Sherlock waited for them and then put one finger up in the air. "First word?" A nod.

Sherlock found it a little too challenging. She had to think like ordinary people, and that was a hard test. She went to Greg and made an imitation of a doctor hearing for his heartbeat through a stethoscope. An abundance of "stethoscope", "patient", "sick" came through. Sherlock pointed to herself and then imitated again.

"Doctor?" Jim tried. Sherlock gave him a thumbs-up, and put up two fingers.

"Second word."

Strangelove was a weird word to do. She put up one finger in the air.

"First word again?" She shook her head, first displaying two fingers, and then one finger.

"Okay, got it. Second word, first part."

She nodded, and then put on a bemused face, pointing at whatever was in front of her... strange... how to do it...

* * *

_Six years ago..._

_"How do you do it?" John asked her. He had fallen down, a courtesy of Sherlock when she had made him run as fast as she could, and as a sorry, Mummy had made her treat him to some ice cream. She had wanted to, she was intrigued by him, how the mere sight of him made her toes curl into her shoes._

_"Do what?" she tried to sound nonchalant, while very pleased to see John's eyes light up with wonder and admiration. No one had ever asked her that. No one had ever asked her how she did it._

_"You know," said he, licking his ice-cream, swinging his legs, and his fingers trailing absentmindedly over the wound on his knee that her Mummy had cleaned up. They were sitting in the park near Sherlock's house, "tell me everything with just one look. Who taught you that?"_

_Sherlock liked vanilla. She tried not to feel the warmth growing inside her when she found out that John did too, "My brother, Mycroft."_

_"Can you teach me?"_

_She rolled her eyes, "You won't get it."_

_John looked a little hurt when he heard that. She realised that later, when Sherlock reviewed that memory later, when she realised that it was what was called 'being rude'._

_"Okay," he replied sheepishly._

_He had been telling her about a comedy movie he had seen in the movie theatre. She longed to go there, where there would be all darkness, with just one beam of light, with just one screen, where she would be undisturbed and yet there would be people around her, just the way she liked them to be, silent and non-intrusive. But Mummy never let her out of the house alone. Mycroft was too busy to visit the theatre, and he considered it beneath him. Mummy was always busy with one thing or another, and Daddy was always busy helping Mummy. Suddenly, John stood up, staring in the distance. A blind man, she deduced. John was watching a blind man. Sherlock could deduce that he was blind. But John could understand that he needed help, something she failed to do._

_Sentiment, her Mummy explained later, the nine lettered-answer to all that Sherlock couldn't explain. Nine. Square of three. Square root of eighty one. Nine planets in the solar system, or was it ten? Unimportant._

_"Hold the ice-cream, don't eat it!" he warned her imperiously, "and wait here a sec," he instructed, something that she obviously wasn't going to comply with. He got up, and rushed valiantly to the blind man, although his leg still hurt him._

_"Hello," she heard his voice from far away as she followed. Why would John want to help him, he didn't even know him, "where do you want to go, Mr...?_

_"Charlie," the man answered, his arms reaching out for the little boy with him, "can you help me to the bus stop?"_

_Her stomach clenched with dread. What if the man was a kidnapper, using petty tricks to lure kind, trusting children like John towards him? She would never be able to see him again, and he would never be able to make her laugh again, and..._

_"Sure," John answered smartly, "I'll tell you whatever happens as we go down the road, alright?" The man nodded, letting himself be led by John. Sherlock followed at an invisible distance, as she saw John indicating to the various landmarks they were passing by, John's little hands in that man's large ones. Sherlock grabbed an abandoned tire lever, just to attack anyone who tried to kidnap John._

_But nothing happened. They reached the bus stop without a scratch. The man blessed John, and Sherlock wondered if those stories that Mummy told her were indeed true. If God did roam the Earth, and appeared in guise of a handicapped man, just to see who helped._

_If that was the case, she was happy that God existed, and that he came down to bless John, even if she knew that such things were impossible. Even as she watched his smiling face, his small figure coming over to her. Even as she found preposterous fantasies trying to gain dominance over her logical mind, she realised that John was one of a kind. Irreplaceable._

_"Good," said he, "You didn't eat my ice-cream."_

* * *

Two more Dumb Charades games later, she found herself chewing on gum, listening, or rather pretending to listen to uninteresting gossip.

"Did you know, Cassandra Hopkins got a new nose ring?"

"Yeah, her new boyfriend there," Janine pointed at a distance at a tall, hook-nosed boy in 'I Heart My City' shirt, "He's big money."

Sherlock pretended to smile, and to her horror, it was very untimed and not-required.

"Sherl!" Janine shook her by her shoulder, "What about you? You never tell us anything?"

"I used to hear that Sherl liked John Watson over there. Even asked him out."

"OMG, John Watson?!" Jeanette squealed, "Sherl, why didn't you tell us?"

A year ago, a rumour had gotten out, a rumour that she desperately tried to suppress. John had let it slip that Sherlock had asked him out. She did not ask him out, it was a confession, not even a question. She rolled her eyes, trying to hide her cheeks burning in shame. She did NOT ask him out. And her name was Sherlock, not Sherl, "God, Janine, I told you, it was just a rumour-"

"Hey," she smiled reassuringly, "No big deal. You can't help it. John is literally man candy. Most of us here have had a crush on him."

"I mean, some of us used to be so jealous that he used to hang out with you all the time, Sherl! We thought you two were, I don't know, going out or something!"

Sherlock exhaled an all-suffering sigh, lying smoothly, "Not interested."

"I heard he's gay," one of them piped up, and all the girls looked horrified at that. Sherlock wanted to tell them that they needed to shut up, because they were getting too loud.

"No way! John Watson? GAY?! That's like the most impossible thing in the world."

"Why not?" this girl, Irene, had daggers glared in her direction, "I mean, think. He's never had a girlfriend, not that we've heard of one, right?"

Most of them turned to Janine. She knew everything about everyone. Irene quirked her eyebrows, and Janine fell into deep thought. She was right.

"Yeah, you're right, you know? I wonder why I never thought of it." Sherlock wanted to counter with a _because you're an idiot, that's why, _but it would simply be a trigger to those memories...

_A Bit Not Good, Yeah._

Sherlock searched desperately for Molly with her eyes, or Greg, because that's who she would be with. And away from Jim, of course, he being her ex. And suddenly, she began wondering why Molly had wanted to come to her ex's party, and also bring Sherlock along.

Her mind wanted to believe that she was the part of an elaborate scheme hatched by John to bring Sherlock into the party, so that... she did not dare to think beyond that. She did not dare to think that John had something for her, after learning the lesson of a lifetime. When she had come to the party, she had vowed to herself that she would look at John not more than ten times. And here, she had obviously exceeded it, and also had lost count of it.

This wasn't a party for her. It was like a dungeon, or more appropriately, an Iron Maiden.

She needed to leave before they could ask her any more questions relating to John. She needed to go. She checked the time. It was almost eleven. It would take her another half-an-hour to reach her house, so it was okay.

Last time, she told herself, and turned to look into John's eyes. Watching him. Re-recording every last minute detail of him. And then, somehow, John turned too, and this time, he didn't look away. He held her gaze, and she held his. Disappointment flooded through her. Time didn't slow down. Wind did not stop. Silence wasn't cast all over the room. No breath caught in her throat. No serotonin, no hormones. Still nothing. Still numb. Still no heartbreak, still no giddiness.

Movies lie, books lie. All conspired to push people into the all-consuming pit of love.

In her Palace, she stood watching, as doors closed one by one, like a scene filmed a million times. The Blind man came and kidnapped John, took him away while Sherlock watched, still not able to react, still paralysed.

Calm, peaceful, hateful.

As John reached out for her hand, to measure their palms, he felt himself burning, but he still didn't pull away. He remained valiant, and brave as always, the little boy, not the serious, focused teenager.

In the church, as she played the memory for the umpteenth time, this time she saw John's fingers approach hers, and then drift away, as John fell from his chair, into a burning mass down below them. Sherlock watched, still not able to do anything.

_Delete._

In the grounds, she heard John say 'no' to her. Because she had waited, although not willingly. Her legs had frozen. Of course, she told herself. He was always going to say no.

_No. NO._

_I do not love you._

_I'm sorry for that._

_I have soccer practice now, and all the boys will be coming so I gotta go. Bye._

She turned around, and she left Jim's house, leaving John to stare after her.

_Goodbye John._

The little John pleaded to be rescued, but she just watched, beyond everything. She would've traded her Palace to feel anything, even pain. To hear her heart snap into two. But it was already broken. How could it break again?

_Wait, tell me how you knew that I was from Afghanistan?_

The hurricane stopped, but the storm didn't.

_Work it out, John. You know my methods._

* * *

Sherlock didn't get a taxi back home. She walked and walked, headphones in her ears. She pretended, like always, that John was following her. That any second, she would turn and find herself in his arms. And she always turned around, just in case John was there.

She did. He wasn't. But someone else was, in a hoodie. At a little distance away. Her eyes narrowed, and she ducked into an alley, and picked up a metal rod fallen on the ground, near the dumpster. As an added precaution, if the man bested her, she would treat him to some strong pepperspray, her own preparation.

As he came around, Sherlock knocked him in the back and struck the back of his head, making him fall down on the pavement, about to hit him with the metal rod, just when she recognised the familiar odour as he tried to get on his feet with a groan.

John.

"Ow, Sherlock, what the hell?"

Flustered and embarrassed, she stepped back, dropping the rod in her anxiety, "I'm sorry. I did not realise."

"It's okay," said he, massaging the back of his head, "Good to see you've prepared yourself against any assaulter."

She looked down at her heels, wanting to say something. Maybe John had to go home too," Okay. Goodbye."

Last and the only last goodbye, she told herself.

She had gone some distance, this time her heart pumping furiously from the mixture of adrenaline and embarrassment. It calmed down, but sped up again when John called to her, "Sherlock, wait!"

She stopped instantly, "Yes?" John came up to her, his eyes flicking over her entire figure, and his face breaking into a lopsided smile, the sort he gave her whenever he used to tease her when they were kids, "You look..." he gulped before saying further, every syllable earnest, "wonderful."

_You look like a mad scientist_, observed little John, still fighting the fire bravely.

She tried to maintain a straight face, "Thank you," and then after moments of contemplation, added, "You too."

John blushed, and she felt her heart soaring for the first time in years. She hadn't seen him blush since the Year 9. She still revelled in the fact that only she could do that. She didn't know any other girl who could, but as far as she knew, only she could do that. John looked at her expectantly, and then looked down at his sneakers, "I thought you would say something like _could you please teach me how to make such subtle observations_."

She swallowed, heat rising in her cheeks. He remembered her, her words. He missed her too, "No, because you can't and it'll be a waste of my breath."

Her Palace stopped the self-destruct sequence in the places where John was there: everywhere, instead busying itself in retrieving whatever she had deleted. John gave a laugh, the sort she thought she would never hear again, "True."

They both looked away, indefinable silence hanging over them. Not awkward, not companionable. Just silence, long and tentative. Finally John gave in, approaching her as cautiously as if she were a bomb, "Listen, erm... I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask then," she tried to remain stoic, not letting John see that she had already crumbled inwardly. She was done with pretending that John missed her too. He was probably going to ask her-

"Why are you always alone?" said he, his brows knitted slightly. Sherlock wished she had heard wrong. She wished she were dead. Of all people, why did John have to ask her that?

"I mean, I don't want to come across as impertinent, but... why do you want to settle for alone?"

_Because Alone is what I have. Alone will not break my heart, it'll always protect it._

In her Palace, she opened a cabinet. It was in a morgue, the sort of morgue Molly always dreamt of working in, the morgue at the centre of her Palace, at the centre of a circular maze, from where escape was impossible for anyone except Sherlock. She reached inside it and took her heart in her palms, too big for her to handle, too frail for her to manage.

She had built the maze in such a way that it changed the architecture everytime she faced it. So that even if someone managed to penetrate her consciousness, they would never get to her heart. It would always remain protected. But John had found his way around it, his smiles drilling and melting his way in through the diamond walls of the maze: the hardest substance made of the element with the highest melting point.

_Carbon. Atomic number 6. Melting point: 3773 Kelvin. Greatest ability to catenate and form covalent bonds due to small size and valency of 4. Eight allotropes. Most of them black. Black. Darkness. Nothingness. What I feel now._

"That's what you think?" she croaked.

John watched his shoes intensely, and then looked up at her, still at a distance, "No. I want to change that."

She closed her eyes for a blink, feeling his words imprinting on her. At that moment, when he confronted her, she did what her heart always screamed to her to do. She let go.

"I love you," she whispered to the dark, for what seemed like the millionth time. Bland words, with a sea of opportunities in them. Except this time, John was there with her, in the dark alleyway. She had always expected to tell him that in a place that wasn't anywhere near a dumpster. Maybe the first time, it had been the light interfering...

To her surprise, John crossed the distance between them in a second, and grabbed her wrist, strong but not painful, just like he did in her Palace, in the room that she had forbidden herself to visit, in the room where she always kissed John, but John never kissed her back. In spite of all her wild imagination, she couldn't imagine that. This time, her heart gave out, at his searing touch. This time, instead of him, she felt herself burning, but she kept her arm there resolutely as she felt it going aflame.

"What're you doing?" she managed to breathe out.

John simply smiled, "Don't want you running away this time."

And she knew what she had done wrong. John wanted her to be herself, something she had clearly forsaken over the past three years, in the hope that John would want her only if she became like the rest of the girls. That's why John had never had a girlfriend. The same reason why Sherlock had shaken Victor Trevor off during the evening.

His grip on her slackened, as she looked down, "Three years, John. You... waited three years to tell me that?"

His fingers slid down, to her left palm, to thread with her fingers, "Mary told me you were playing Truth and Dare, and that she had dared you to tell me that... I'm sorry I believed her-"

Sherlock straightened up at that angrily, "What the-?" But John merely stopped her, a palm in front of her, "Please, let me say this."

She closed her mouth. She was going to mend her mistake. She was going to let him talk. She was going to listen to him. He leaned down towards her, "I'm sorry I believed her. I should've known better. I didn't know what to believe, not after everything... But I knew, today I did," he sucked in a harsh breath, "I love you too."

Sherlock should've known. It was Mary all along, driving a wedge between them, but she stopped her thoughts when she felt John's other palm on her cheek, and she sucked in a breath to ask him something that only John asked her in her Palace, "Still?"

She felt his chest against hers as he embraced her, kissing her cheek softly as he confirmed her words, "Still... Always... and then you're gonna tell me about the latest crime that you found interesting."

She kissed his cheek back, taking the odour of his lime-cream aftershave in.

_Afghanistan or Iraq?_ she asked John, little John, teen John, John in his football jersey, John during the graduation.

_You_, all of them replied, and they kissed in the forbidden room of her Mind Palace, finally together as one. Finally, she managed to smile a real smile that evening.

* * *

**Whew! Approx 13.3K words in a day. I know that the storytelling changes a little when Sherlock's Mind Palace comes along, but I did that so I could convey how Sherlock's mental state was like during the party :)**

**I left it as an open ending, because I don't know what they're going to do later. And I know how lame that excuse sounds :P**


	2. Alternate Ending to the Ist chapter

**I was dissatisfied by the way I ended the first chapter, so this is the other ending, because the first one was too cliché. And this one is more canon.**

**But don't worry, it's still a happy ending! :)**

* * *

_A Bit Not Good, Yeah._

Sherlock searched desperately for Molly with her eyes, or Greg, because that's who she would be with. And away from Jim, of course, he being her ex. And suddenly, she began wondering why Molly had wanted to come to her ex's party, and also bring Sherlock along.

Her mind wanted to believe that she was the part of an elaborate scheme hatched by John to bring Sherlock into the party, so that... she did not dare to think beyond that. She did not dare to think that John had something for her, after learning the lesson of a lifetime. When she had come to the party, she had vowed to herself that she would look at John not more than ten times. And here, she had obviously exceeded it, and also had lost count of it.

This wasn't a party for her. It was like a dungeon, or more appropriately, an Iron Maiden.

She needed to leave before they could ask her any more questions relating to John. She needed to go. She checked the time. It was almost eleven. It would take her another half-an-hour to reach her house, so it was okay.

Last time, she told herself, and turned to look into John's eyes. Watching him. Re-recording every last minute detail of him. And then, somehow, John turned too, and this time, he didn't look away. He held her gaze, and she held his. Disappointment flooded through her. Time didn't slow down. Wind did not stop. Silence wasn't cast all over the room. No breath caught in her throat. No serotonin, no hormones. Still nothing. Still numb. Still no heartbreak, still no giddiness.

Movies lie, books lie. All conspired to push people into the all-consuming pit of love.

In her Palace, she stood watching, as doors closed one by one, like a scene filmed a million times. The Blind man came and kidnapped John, took him away while Sherlock watched, still not able to react, still paralysed.

Calm, peaceful, hateful.

As John reached out for her hand, to measure their palms, he felt himself burning, but he still didn't pull away. He remained valiant, and brave as always, the little boy, not the serious, focused teenager.

In the church, as she played the memory for the umpteenth time, this time she saw John's fingers approach hers, and then drift away, as John fell from his chair, into a burning mass down below them. Sherlock watched, still not able to do anything.

In the grounds, she heard John say 'no' to her. Because she had waited, although not willingly. Her legs had frozen. Of course, she told herself. He was always going to say no.

_No. NO._

_I do not love you._

_I'm sorry for that._

_I have soccer practice now, and all the boys will be coming so I gotta go. Bye._

She turned around, and she left Jim's house, leaving John to stare after her. The only one to see her leave.

_Goodbye John._

The little John pleaded to be rescued, but she just watched, beyond everything. She would've traded her Palace to feel anything, even pain. To hear her heart snap into two. But it was already broken. How could it break again?

_Wait, tell me how you knew that I was from Afghanistan?_

The hurricane stopped, but the storm didn't.

She knew that she had promised to herself that she wouldn't bring the cigarette to her lips that evening. But it was a small thing compared to the rebelliousness she felt when she smoked in a place she wasn't supposed to. Rebelliousness as opposed to the artificial peace she felt.

_Work it out, John. You know my methods._

* * *

Seven years later...

Sometimes, when all was quiet, John could still hear it, in his ears, like a record playing over and over again, set to on whenever screaming would reach his ears. The reverberating, lucid memories were nearly enough to drive a man insane, and surely enough to drive a man from his own, although temporary, home. The silent, hateful glares in his direction whenever he would not come home at a reasonable hour. He had no idea who had sown those ideas in Mary's mind, and he didn't want to know. Unimportant. Unnecessary.

John could still hear the incredulous laugh of a Girl in Year 10, dark curly hair, ivory skin, a skin he always wanted to kiss beneath him, a Girl he wanted to laugh with for the rest of his life, a Girl he wanted to solve crimes with the rest of his life, just like She used to say. He could still hear Her arrogant, imperious voice, he could still feel Her fingers under his, just that one time, at Christmas, he could still feel Her eyes on him. He could still remember the dismay he felt whenever She ran away from him, as if She were afraid of trusting him with Herself, and John always wondered what he was doing wrong, why She didn't like him back.

_You are a girl, and you still have bigger palms than I do._

She had changed. She was no longer the girl he had fallen in love with. She no longer talked about the criminal cases. She no longer talked about Her weird experiments that he thought weren't possible, but they worked like a charm every time, leaving him utterly bamboozled. And amazed.

She became... a girl John would never have fallen for, but he had loved Her nonetheless, because She still looked like the Girl he had fallen for, and he knew that She was there, deep inside, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to be with this warped version of Her anymore.

John remembered Her long pale throat, and the cigarette smoke that She sucked from them and out of Her full lips, a fallen angel in disguise and a demon in human form, Her fingers wrapping themselves around the little white smoke machine as She drank from it. He watched Her only from a distance, when he was sure that She couldn't see him because She would be looking away, or wandering in Her 'Mind Palace'. His friends would keep on talking, and he would keep nodding, not really caring what they said, because all they could talk about was Mary Morstan or Sarah Sawyer, and how good their bodies were, or how nice they looked when they walked.

John still remembered how Her voice had almost trembled at the last word before She ran away, after his heart soared, and before it dipped down to a trough of a wave.

He remembered how She once told him that She could get lost in Her own Palace, when She would go down a certain circular maze with only one correct route and 243 wrong ones. She could stay in there for hours, many-a-times, She could go into a coma, where Her mind would be searching for an exit for hours.

He had once asked Her what lay in the centre of it, since it was a circular maze it had to have a centre. She always changed the topic, and he never took anything approaching to a liberty with Her, so much did he always respect Her.

He had never expected Her, of all people in the world, to play such a cruel joke on him. She joked all the time, mostly practical and very untimely ones, and She even experimented on him, and he let Her. But this was his heart. She had crossed the line this time.

But John had still loved Her. And he wasn't sure what it was now.

* * *

_John wanted to run towards Her figure sprinting away at top speed, to stop Her, to tell Her that he loved Her too, that he wanted to hold Her, and laugh away with Her at Her stupidity when it came to relationships._

_She had changed, but now it didn't matter. All that mattered now were the laughs, the jokes, the feeling of being together with Her and the ridiculous cases She told him about._

_But She was running away. He shouted after Her, but he suspected that She didn't hear. That was okay, he would tell Her everything he felt on Monday. John tried his best to not think about why She had run away, and instead focussed on the practice. Every free kick he made that day went outside the ground. Despite the fact that he got kicked once or twice during the practice (or so many times that he lost count), he still didn't shout at them angrily. He took it all happily._

_"What?!" Mary's voice rang out, as clear and as sharp as a whip. John flinched at the suddenness of it, "You like Sherlock Holmes?!"_

_John smiled goofily, not able to stop himself as he told her that that day about the fact that Sherlock had confessed. He loved Her, so much. But Mary didn't seem pleased even in the slightest._

_"Yeah I guess, I mean, of course I -!"_

_"John, God, she's messing with you!"_

_He turned around at her, looking at her with incredulity, trying not to believe her. Sherlock wouldn't do that, would She?_

_"What?"_

_She looked pained, "I'm sorry, I didn't think you liked her back, I didn't-"_

_"What?!" He demanded, his voice angry, steady, hard, furious._

_"I'm... just, Janine and I were playing this truth-and-dare game..."_

_John felt his universe sinking into him, collapsing into itself, matter sucked into itself, self-destructing, matter and antimatter sucked into a black hole, at the centre of the universe, exceeding critical mass, 1.5 solar masses, 2, 3, 4, 10, 100..._

It's primary school stuff, how can you not know it?...

If I've ever known, I've deleted it.

_Ripping him away, into pieces..._

_"...and she invited Sherlock along. Of course, she didn't want to come, you know how she is, but then I dared her that she didn't have the guts to ask out any guy that I pointed to..."_

_A joke, that was what it was to Her. A silly little joke. About guts. Why him?_

Why me?_ He wanted to croak out._

_He wished he could create a Mind Palace of his own and succumb to it, like She did. Go into coma perhaps._

_"... And then she just said that she could do anything, perhaps even try this one as an experiment, and then I dared her to ask you out... John, you okay?"_

_A brush of fingers against his. But this time, it wasn't Her long, oddly elegant ones, this time it was shorter, with long fingernails with blue paint on them, soft hands, not Her blistered ones which mostly had sticking plasters on them, and those which had chemical stains all over them, which had blunt and naturally pink fingernails, nervous, agile, quivering like the antennae of an insect._

_"Yeah," he barked out a brittle laugh, removing his fingers at once, not letting the touch of Her be overridden by someone else, "no I mean, yeah. That's what She does, doesn't She? I used to be Her friend, so it was perfectly logical that She was gonna experiment on me."_

_It never occurred to him that Mary might be making it up as she leaned against him, giving every indication that she was as... whatever-he-had-been-feeling-then as he was. He felt her hands creeping and then encompass his waist, while she rested her chin against him as he sat there, in the same bench in the same park where he had had ice-cream with Sherlock a lifetime ago. He had been bleeding then, and he was bleeding now, and both the times the reason had been Her. The difference was only that this time, it was his heart, and a million times painful and numbing._

_He stood up suddenly, causing Mary to back away, "John?!"_

_He straightened up, and walked away, towards nowhere, perhaps his home. He turned around an alley, and pressed his fingers to his eyes and stayed quiet a long time. And if a tear escaped them, well, no one would ever be the wiser._

* * *

John thought of Sherlock, but it still couldn't block out the reality.

He wondered how he had ended up with Mary after all. It had been something after that party. He remembered looking into Sherlock's eyes just before She had left. Her eyes betrayed no emotion, and John had, like he always did, wondered why She would do that to him, if only for an experiment.

But something about Her eyes made John want to seek Her out. They weren't piercing as always, they were vacant, just the way he had been feeling. He watched Her leave Jim's house, head bowed, earphones in Her ears, and suddenly he wanted to confront Her. But She was gone, just as suddenly She had come into her life, just as dramatic.

_Afghanistan or Iraq?_

_Do you know me?_

_I wouldn't bother to._

He went back to Jim's house, and suddenly, he found himself in Mary's arms, with Sarah glaring daggers at her, and seven years passed. He became a doctor, he still went out with Mary, he still led the dull existence except for the moments when he had the scalpel in his hands, and he remembered Her haughty and razor sharp cheekbones, just as sharp.

_You're an idiot, John!_

So, when Mary screamed at him for the millionth time, for sleeping with someone John had never even heard of, he stood up, and left. She screamed behind him, and he closed the door behind him.

A doctor with a limp, that's how he was known in his hospital. It reminded him of Greg House. He couldn't feel anything anymore. It all had been exhausted, back when She had walked out of his life, and now he was walking out of Mary's. They were done, not that they had ever been something, not to him at least as he reflected back upon his so-called relationship with her, but he was D-O-N-E.

He had no contact with Sherlock, not even a single glance of Hers during all the years, not since ten years ago, when She had told him that She loved him. He now knew that She did, in fact, and Mary had lied to him but it had been too late. He had come to know about it only when he had gone and asked for Sherlock at Her house, to her Mummy, but she was already gone. She had left for America after that, after an offer letter from Stanford. He had pleaded with Mycroft, who only said that he couldn't do anything, because this was Her decision. Annoying git, he always interfered except for the time when it mattered.

_Tell Her I'm sorry_, he had said to Mycroft. But he had simply shaken his head and walked away.

Leaning on the walking stick, he walked and walked, away from there, just away, with no particular destination in his mind, to be as far from wherever he was at the present time. And there, right in the middle of London, in Regent's Park, he heard it.

"John? John Watson?!"

He turned around, at the man, bespectacled, plump and red, with a takeout cup in his hand, the very image of a happily married man, the very image of domestic bliss, "John Watson! Stamford, Mike Stamford! We were at school together-"

John grimaced guiltily. Mike used to be his best friend in middle school, after Sherlock. He extended a hand in response to the pudgy hand that he outstretched excitedly in his direction, "Yes, of course, sorry Mike, hello!"

Mike gave him a smile, happy and comfortingly genuine, "Yeah, I know, I got fat."

John smiled back, a little softened by the first real smile he had seen in a long time. Mike had always been plump, "No, I mean, yeah, but-"

"How are you, mate? Haven't seen you in, like, years," he spoke cheerfully, "Fancy a coffee?"

"Yeah, sure."

* * *

After an hour, John and Mike were walking towards the St. Bart's hospital. John wanted to get away, and he wanted a new job. He didn't fancy seeing Mary in the hospital all the time, having broken up with her when she would still be a nurse in there.

Mike had asked him about how his life was, about how Harry was, and in turn, he had poured in about how happy he was with his wife and his two kids, and how irritated he was with his students, and everything.

"It's your lucky day, John!" he patted him on the shoulder, "we're short on staff… Last one went off on maternity leave, and we really need an A&E doctor, if that's okay-"

"Yeah," he said at once, anything to get away from Mary and her manipulative reach, "A&E sounds great."

"Awesome, so I'll just grab my coat from the lab and we'll go to the Chief of Staff."

"Sure," said he, forcing a smile. They pushed through the double doors and the chuckle bubbling up from John's chest got stuck right in his throat. He stared at the Lady sitting across the room from him, immersed in Her work, doing some chemical analysis with sophisticated apparatus. She seemed taller than the night when She had walked out of that party. She looked much mature and much refined than the Girl in the shirt and the simple woollen cardigan. Her dress might have been different, and She might have been looking posh, but it was Her, there was no mistaking in the single-minded focus that She put in Her work, or the flutter that he felt in himself whenever he saw Her at work, or those cheekbones. Her fingers were no longer acid-stained, and John wondered how She had managed to get rid of them.

It was Sherlock Holmes.

She did a double take at him, and he saw Her stiffen visibly. Their eyes met and Sherlock's expression betrayed a moment of indefinable emotion before masking itself with indifference. John couldn't quite breathe properly, so he looked down and let Mike speak first.

"Yeah, it's her, if you're wondering. Comes here and-"

"Mike can I borrow your phone?" came Her voice, just as he remembered it, as if John had been transported back in time, back when he was a kid, "There's no signal on mine."

There was an exchange of words, which John could only translate as 'No I haven't'. He simply extended his hand, with his phone, the limp forgotten, the cane forgotten as it fell to the ground with a clatter, and drawing Sherlock's attention to it.

"Here, use mine."

She threw him a hard look and strode out of there.

Mike simply shrugged his shoulders as John looked at him, whether to thank him or not he had no idea, "Yeah, don't let it get to you. She always does that."

* * *

Sherlock had no words how to express the way she had felt when she discovered that John was staring across at her. It was like her Palace had never destroyed the memories of John at all. As if it had deceived her by putting a black fireproof cellophane sheet over them, only to resurface when John came back.

No, she told herself. She was done with goodbyes. No fabricating the new ones.

She had torn down her maze, the circular Maze which sealed off any access to the centre, unauthorised or not, when she found out that it couldn't serve its purpose anymore. Instead, she had hidden it behind layers of haughtiness and condescension, and found out that such a barrier was more effective than the physical ones. But that didn't mean that she hadn't rebuilt it. Making it a spiralling circular Labyrinth made of the toughest material, impenetrable, unsolvable puzzle. A 3-D structure, a spherical maze, instead of the circular 2-D one. She had believed that John had earlier flown over the Labyrinth and got to the centre. Now, that possibility was eliminated. It now had 1812 wrong routes, and only one correct one. She now liked getting lost inside it sometimes, when she had no cases to crack up, it was her best alternative. The Maze was her best distraction.

"Sherlock!"

She closed her eyes, the timbre of his mellow tenor seeping through her, into her Palace, eating away the layers.

"Wait!" John called after her.

And before she could run away like she always did, he was in front of her, "I didn't expect you here, of all people!"

She attempted a half-smile, "Ah... Good to know. Now, if you'll excuse me-"

"Wait!" His eyes flicked over her entire figure, lighting up in unconscious appreciation, his face breaking into a lopsided smile, the sort he gave her whenever he used to tease her when they were kids, "You look..." he gulped before saying further, every syllable earnest, "amazing."

_You look like a mad scientist, _said little John, after his mouth had closed, on the day when Sherlock had arrived in the school with all her hair cut off. She jolted back to present.

Sherlock tried to maintain a straight face in the wake of her heart pounding furiously against the icy cage, "Thank you," and then after moments of contemplation, added, "You too."

John blushed, like he used to for no reason at all, and she felt her heart soar for the first time in years. She hadn't seen him blush since the Year 9. She still revelled in the fact that she could still do that. Once upon a time, she used to be the only girl who could've done that. She wasn't sure if that was true anymore.

John looked at her expectantly, and then looked down at his shoes, "I thought you would say something like _could you please teach me how to make such subtle observations_."

She swallowed, heat rising in her cheeks. He remembered her, her words, all these years. He missed her too, "No, because you clearly can't and it'll be a waste of my breath."

He smiled, and then swallowed thickly, as if a dry-pill were stuck in his throat. She watched him, his face, his fingers, wishing her mind could've catalogued the feel of them when she had got the only opportunity. The inexorable draw she felt to him, the man who had once been the centre of her universe, coinciding with the centre of her Maze. He had become much more mature, his jaw had become stronger, the squareness of a determined man. There were large pouches under his eyes, his eyes which weren't the same blue anymore. He hadn't been sleeping properly. The stubble grew wild in his cheeks. A scar adorned the side of his face, almost invisible to anyone who did not care to look for it long enough. He turned a little, and it disappeared.

_Optical illusion. The finest example of one._

Things always escaped when she had just gotten hold of it. It always did. Just like the little scar.

She hardened her heart and proceeded to burn whatever there was left of him in her Palace, even after ten years, she was amazed by how strong his hold was still there on her. She could not see every wrinkle on his forehead, but some of the major ones she did. Little John pulled himself out of the fire and came up to her.

_Good. You didn't eat my ice-cream._

John gave a laugh, the sort she thought she would never hear again, "True."

They both looked away, indefinable silence hanging over them. Not awkward, not companionable. Just silence, long and tentative. Finally John gave in, approaching her as cautiously as if she were a bomb, "Listen, erm... I wanted to ask you something."

Her Palace stopped the self-destruct sequence in the places where John was still there: everywhere, instead busying itself in retrieving whatever data she had deleted. Hope was too strong a word for the situation. "Ask then," she tried to remain stoic, not letting John see that she had already crumbled inwardly. She was done with pretending that John missed her too. He was probably going to ask her-

"Why are you always alone?" said he, his brows knitted slightly. Sherlock wished she had heard wrong. She wished she were dead. Of all people, why did John have to ask her that?

"I mean, I don't want to come across as impertinent, but... why do you want to settle for alone?"

_Because Alone is what I have. Alone will not break my heart, it'll always protect it._

In her Palace, she opened a cabinet. It was in a morgue, the sort of morgue Molly always dreamt of working in, but dreams never are reality. The morgue at the centre of her Palace, at the centre of the spherical Maze, from where escape was impossible for anyone except Sherlock. She reached inside it and took her heart in her palms, too big for her to handle, too frail for her to manage.

She had built the 3-D Maze in such a way that it changed the architecture everytime she faced it. So that even if someone managed to penetrate her consciousness, they would never get to her heart. It would always remain protected. But John had found his way around it, his smiles drilling and melting his way in through the diamond walls of the maze: the hardest substance made of the element with the highest melting point.

_Diamond. Allotrope of carbon. Carbon. Atomic number 6. Melting point: 3773 Kelvin. Greatest ability for catenation in all of the elements in the periodic table and to form strong, stable covalent bonds due to small size and valency of 4. Eight allotropes of carbon. Most of them black. Black. Darkness. Nothingness. What I don't feel now. What I wish I could feel. What I felt when I left him. _ _Felt. Left. Two very different words, consisting of the same letters, a different permutation lending different meanings to them._

"That's what you think?" she croaked.

John watched his shoes intensely, and then looked up at her, still at a distance, "No. I want to change that."

She came across a different room. She rushed inside and pulled it open.

_There are no arch-enemies in real life_, little John said, when she had told him that Mycroft was her arch-enemy. John had scoffed at that. They were still friends, still a stranger to the concept of romance. At least she was. Had he been too?

_Doesn't happen._

At that point, when she was in Year 8, she could've given up anything to disappear to her Palace, where she could create anything, conceive anything. There was a separate room for such conjurations, the sort that John later described as The Room of Entertainment. She had rolled her eyes at that. It was obviously a Harry Potter reference to the Room Of Requirement.

She used to imagine the world wrapping into itself, but the buildings remained rooted to the surface on which they were built, collapsing into one form, and yet unscathed.

_What do real people have, in their... real lives?_

_Friends..._ he eyed her cautiously, expectantly, _girlfriends, boyfriends..._

_Pfft! _She overrode him, _Dull, boring, predictable. Pick what you like._

The John in the football jersey looked down, his lip curling in disappointment as Sherlock looked away towards the blackboard...

_No, _she replayed John's words in her mind, _I want to change that._

John wanted her. He was still in her love with her. Moreover, he actually _was_ in love with her.

She closed her eyes for a blink, feeling his words imprinting on her. At that moment, when he confronted her, she did what her heart always screamed to her to do. She let go. She let it melt away. The protective walls.

_Diamond changes to carbon dioxide upon burning. Solid to gas. Entropy of the system increases, change in entropy becomes positive, reflecting a change in randomness. Randomness of mind, of thoughts juxtaposed upon one another. Randomness invites chaos. Chaos to order... or just coincidence?_

_The universe is rarely so lazy for a mere coincidence. This was meant to be. The only possible solution._

Precisely the reason why she couldn't run away from him. He was omnipresent in her Palace. There was no reason he wouldn't be such even in her real world.

"I love you," she whispered to the dark, for what seemed like the millionth time. Bland words, with a sea of opportunities in them. Except this time, John was there with her, in the dark alleyway behind St. Bart's, in the evening. Maybe the first time, it had been the light interfering, blinding the truth...

To her surprise, John crossed the distance between them in a second, and grabbed her wrist, strong but not painful, just like he did in her Palace, in the room that she had forbidden herself to visit, in the room where she always kissed John, but John never kissed her back. In spite of all her wild imagination, she couldn't imagine that. This time, her heart gave out, at his searing touch. This time, instead of him, she felt herself burning, but she kept her arm there resolutely as she felt it going aflame.

"What're you doing?" she managed to breathe out.

_Give me your hand_,_ he whispered, his voice not yet cracked, no Adam's apple bobbing in his throat._

John simply smiled, "Don't want you running away this time."

And suddenly it dawned on her: what she had done wrong. John wanted her to be herself, had loved the girl she was in Year 9, something she had clearly forsaken over those past three years, in the hope that John would want her only if she became like the rest of the girls. That's why John had never had a girlfriend. The same reason why Sherlock had shaken Victor Trevor off during that evening.

His grip on her slackened, as she looked down, "Ten years, John. You... waited ten years to tell me that?"

His fingers slid down, to her left palm, to thread with her fingers, "I'm stupid I know. I followed you from that party. I went to your house, but you were gone, and Mycroft didn't allow me-"

Sherlock straightened up at that angrily, "What the-?" But John merely stopped her, a palm in front of her, "Please, let me say this."

She closed her mouth. She was going to mend her mistake. She was going to let him talk. She was going to listen to him. He leaned down towards her, "I'm sorry for being so stupid. I should've known better. I should've done better, after everything... That evening I knew, and I don't know if this was supposed to be, maybe that's why... I have no idea," he sucked in a harsh breath, "I love you too."

_No. NO._

_I do not love you._

_I'm sorry for that._

_I have soccer practice now, and all the boys will be coming so I gotta go. Bye._

**DELETE. REPLACING WITH FRESH DATA...**

_Yes. YES._

_I do love you._

_I'm sorry for everything, I should've known better._

_I don't know if this was supposed to be, maybe that's why... I have no idea._

_So, no byes. Because I'm staying with you._

She stopped her thoughts from flowing in and out when she felt John's other palm on her cheek, and she sucked in a breath to ask him something that only John asked her in her Palace, the John in her mind, "Still?"

She felt his chest against hers as he embraced her, kissing her cheek softly as he confirmed her words, "Still... Always... and then you're gonna tell me about the latest crime that you found interesting."

She kissed his cheek back, taking the odour of his lime-cream aftershave in. He remembered. Love promotes extraordinarily retentive memories, she concluded. Must perform an experiment on that.

_Afghanistan or Iraq?_ she asked John, little John, teen John, John in his football jersey, John during the graduation, the John in her arms.

_You_, all of them replied, and she kissed him in the forbidden room of her Mind Palace, finally together as one.

And finally, John kissed her back in there.

* * *

**So, that's the end to the whole story full stop. Hope you liked it :)**


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